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It’s shaping up to be a major year for South Korean cinema as Hong Sang-soo and Bong Joon Ho get ready for Berlinale premieres of their latest work and later this year we’ll see the premiere of Park Chan-wook’s next feature No Other Choice. With filming kicking off last August and now having just wrapped on January 15 after five months of filming, the first images have now arrived for one of our most-anticipated films of 2025.

Adapting Donald E. Westlake’s 1997 novel The Ax, which Costa-Gavras first adapted in 2005, the black comedy thriller follows a man laid off from the paper company he worked at for 25 years. Some time later and still jobless, he hits on a solution: to genuinely eliminate his competition. Adapted by Park Chan-wook, Lee Kyung-mi, Don McKellar (The Sympathizer), and Lee Ja-hye (Decision to Leave, The Handmaiden), the cast includes Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-jin,...

Following up his noir melodrama Decision to Leave, Park Chan-wook ventured into the world of American television with the forthcoming Max series The Sympathizer, adapting Viet Thanh Nguyen’s acclaimed novel and teaming with Robert Downey Jr. As revealed earlier this year, he’s now set to return to South Korea for his next feature and as production begins this week more details have been unveiled.

Set to begin shooting this Saturday, August 17, Park will be adapting Donald E. Westlake’s 1997 novel The Ax, which the legendary Costa-Gavras first adapted in 2005. The black comedy thriller follows a man laid off from the paper company he worked at for 25 years. Some time later and still jobless, he hits on a solution: to genuinely eliminate his competition. Adapted by Park Chan-wook, Lee Kyung-mi, Don McKellar (The Sympathizer), Lee Ja-hye, the cast includes Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-jin, Park Hee-soon, Lee Sung-min, Yeom Hye-ran,...

Park Chan-wook has kicked off production on his next feature, tentatively titled “The Ax” (literaly Korean title “I Can't Help It”) with megastars Lee Byung-hun and Son Ye-jin in the lead.

Based on “The Ax” by Donald E. Westlake, which has also had a French film adaptation so far, the tragic-comic thriller will follow Yoo Man-soo, a salaried man who loses his job under an envious boss and goes to extreme measure to provide for his family. Lee will play Man-soo while Son Ye-jin will portray his devoted wife Mi-ri, who must step up for her husband and her family.

This will of course be the third collaboration between Park and Lee, with the actor having previously worked in the prolific director's breakout early feature “Jsa: Joint Securiry Area” as well as his segment “Box” in the horror anthology “Three… Extremes”. While this will be the first time Son Ye-jin...

Son Ye-jin is called the “One and Only” for good reason. She became a star right with her debut and has been at the centre of public interest as an icon of melodrama ever since. She has moved between different genres, while avoiding stereotypes and fearlessly embarking on adventures to find her unique character and novelty. Successful both on cinema and TV, Son Ye-jin is one of the most iconic actresses of her generation. On the occasion of being the focus of the special spotlight at Bifan, here are ten of her best movies, in chronological order, although it is obvious, that her two best movies are “The Last Princess” and “The Truth Beneath”

1. Lover's Concerto (2002) by Lee Han

One day, Ji-hwan begins to receive letters from an unidentified person. The letters, containing black-and-white photos of happy children playing, remind Ji-hwan of his old two friends. Five years earlier, while...

There is no denying that the Korean crime thrillers are the frontrunners of the impact the country’s cinema has on international cinema. However, despite the quality of so many productions, their style seems very similar, particularly regarding the narrative and editing parts. “The Truth Beneath” excels at exactly these aspects, while retaining the quality of the rest.

“The Truth Beneath” screened at the New York Asian Film Festival

Yeon-hong is married to Jong-chan and has a teenage daughter named Min-jin, who used to be quite wild when she was even younger. Jong-chan worked as an announcer but is now preparing to run for elections as National Assembly member, and at the same time tries to hide his daughter’s shenanigans. Yeon-hong supports her husband with all her heart, but during the first day of the campaign, Min-jin disappears. As the days pass and the police do not find any clues,...

Festival will go ahead with physical screenings (July 9-16) but without international guests.

South Korea’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Bifan) has announced it will open this year’s edition with Korean high school horror franchise film, Whispering Corridors 6: The Humming.

In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Asia’s largest genre film fest will be screening 212 films from 48 countries in a hybrid on-and-offline event (July 9-16). A total of 72 films will be making their world premieres at Bifan.

With South Korea requiring a mandatory two-week quarantine for arrivals from overseas, the festival is proceeding without any overseas guests and,...

It’s time to experience extreme vengeance as Park Chan-wook’s sensationally violent masterpiece Oldboy is released this week with a newly mastered restoration courtesy of Arrow Films. To celebrate, we are giving away a DVD.

Often cited as one of the best films of the 2000s and possibly the definitive example of extreme Asian cinema, Oldboy is a brutal modern classic of the revenge genre. Based on the Japanese manga of the same name, the film tells the horrific tale of Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), a businessman who is inexplicably kidnapped and imprisoned in a grim hotel room-like cell for 15 years, without knowing his captor or the reason for his incarceration.

Directed with immense flair by Park Chan-wook (The Handmaiden), Oldboy blazed a trail at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival where it was lauded by the President of the Jury, director Quentin Tarantino. The film went on to become an international smash hit,...

“Tazza: The High Rollers” set benchmarks for South Korean gambling films back when it was released. The 2nd highest-grossing movie of 2006 back when it was released, it still remains in the Top 50 highest grossing films of all time at the South Korean box office. The film was followed by a sequel “Tazza: The Hidden Card” which was met with mixed reactions upon release and the franchise expanded with a tv series as well. Now, 5 years after the sequel, the third film in the series, “Tazza: One-Eyed Jacks”, is ready for release.

Synopsis

Do Il-chool has a talent for playing poker and he is the son of Jjakgwi. His father was a gambler and had one ear cut off after he was caught cheating. Il-Chool meets mysterious one-eyed gambler Aekku and gets involved in the master gambling world.

The third film is once again based on the namesake comic, the third in the Tazza series.

The London Korean Film Festival Teaser Screening series returns with the European premiere of fantasy drama “Be With You”, based on Japanese author Takuji Ichikawa’s bestselling novel of the same name. Lee Chang-hoon’s directorial debut takes us on a heart-wrenching journey deep into sunaebo, the type of pure and eternal love lying at the core of countless Korean and Japanese melodramas of the kind; yet is perhaps a concept less familiar to the Western eye.

While Woo-jin (So Ji-sub, Rough Cut) mourns the passing of his beloved wife Soo-a (Son Ye-jin, The Truth Beneath), their young son, seven-year-old Ji-ho, holds unfailingly onto his mother’s vow to return when the next rainy season breaks. Ji-ho’s unflinching faith in his mother’s words prove not in vain; miraculously a year later the three are reunited on that promised first day of the rainy season.

The woman who appears...